


when we talk, you say it softly (but i love it when you're awfully quiet)

by Lysippe



Series: The Worst Witch 2018 Winter Fluff-A-Thon [2]
Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017), The Worst Witch - All Media Types
Genre: Day 2, F/F, I swear, Lights, and introspection, because my god do I love writing introspection, but like, here have some Hecate guilt, it's cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 22:05:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16819378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lysippe/pseuds/Lysippe
Summary: In any event, the simple act of decorating her school clearly brought Pippa great enough joy that Hecate doubted very much whether anything she could say would be able to dampen her spirits, even if she had wanted to.





	when we talk, you say it softly (but i love it when you're awfully quiet)

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of those ones where I started off with the first line and no plan other than that, and then I completely veered off track and went in a totally different direction, so I guess that's a thing that happened? It turned out cuter than I was expecting, but also a lot more introspective than I was expecting, so make of that what you will, I guess.

Pentangle’s, for some reason, was alight with fairy lights of all shapes, sizes, and colors. They were strung up from every possible place, from the ceiling in the great hall to the string of them draped over Pippa’s desk in her office. But for all that Hecate had sniffed and frowned at them (and she had, the moment she saw them), she had to admit, they did look quite lovely. As lovely as turning centuries of witching tradition on its head could be, in any event. Which Hecate couldn’t help pointing out, just once.

Pippa, for her part, ignored Hecate’s judgment completely, full to bursting with jollity and what she called _the holiday spirit_. It seemed to Hecate to be little more than an excuse for letting go of all sensibilities, modern or otherwise. But all modern proclivities aside, Hecate had never known Pippa to be a particularly frivolous individual, so she let it go. And in any event, the simple act of decorating her school clearly brought Pippa great enough joy that Hecate doubted very much whether anything she could say would be able to dampen her spirits, even if she had wanted to.

Which she absolutely did not.

For much as she had groused and groaned (plenty), and as much as the brightly colored (yet still, somehow, not gaudy) decorations offended her sensibilities (less, she had to admit, than she would have thought), this was Pippa’s school. Her home. Her life’s work, turned out far better than anyone ever expected it to. (The witching community, Hecate included, had always placed a high importance on tradition, and despite the divide between them, Hecate remembered well the scorn with which Pippa was met when she opened her school. Right up until the few students she had managed to recruit - largely those who had found themselves unsuited to other, more traditional schools - had soundly trounced every other school in Britain in their exams that first year.)

And her personal feelings aside, Hecate was a guest here, in Pippa’s home. In her life. She had been granted a second chance that she would never feel she deserved, would never quite understand, and she had no plans on ruining everything again. So, as Pippa explained to her the different decorations and their different cultural meanings and how important it was to her and her students that everyone feel represented and included, or at the very least not _excluded_ , from their festivities, Hecate listened with as open a mind as she could. Saw the earnestness with which Pippa believed in what she was doing, what she had created. Heard the slightly defensive tone she took at every question Hecate asked, and knew that those were questions and decisions Pippa had already had to answer for time and again, from voices far more critical than her own.

And, she realized, perhaps far more belatedly than she should have, Pippa most likely did not know that her questions were not meant to judge, or criticize. Because why would she, when Hecate had so openly scorned the very concept on which Pippa’s school was built? When had Hecate ever given her the reason to believe that she took Pippa, her school, and her entire magical philosophy, as anything more than a bad joke at the expense of proper witching sensibilities?

And it was with a sharp pang of guilt that Hecate realized that Pippa had probably thought this for as long as she had been back in Hecate’s life. Had probably thought it through tearful reconciliations, and tentative conversations over tea, and tremulous first kisses, and--

And somehow, Pippa had found a way to love her anyway.

It made her heart hurt in a way it hadn’t for so many years, to think that Pippa might believe that Hecate valued her less, respected her less, for something she took so much pride in. Something that made her eyes light up brighter than the night stars, the pace of her voice quicken, trying to keep up with the thoughts flowing through her brain. Something that brought her joy, and purpose, and a sense of fulfillment.

And so, as Pippa rounded the corner ahead of her, chattering about a young witch she had enrolled this year whose family had recently relocated from eastern Russia, and the challenges and triumphs the staff had faced in helping her adapt, Hecate took a moment to breathe in, just enough to steady herself, give herself the boost she needed to gently grab Pippa’s wrist.

Pippa stopped talking almost immediately. She turned around, eyes questioning, searching, and opened her mouth to speak, but Hecate beat her to it.

“It’s wonderful,” Hecate said, the words woefully inadequate, but earnest, thick with emotion. “Everything you’ve done, everything you’ve built. How much you care and how much you value your students and… how much you want this school to be more than a place of learning. It is… an incredible accomplishment, and it occurs to me that I have never--”

Pippa blinked at Hecate for a moment, mouth still slightly open. Her face paled, then flushed, then settled into a pink sort of tint around the tips of her cheeks. She looked down. “Was I really going on that much?” she asked, quietly.

“Yes,” Hecate said simply. Then, at Pippa’s stricken look, she added, “And why wouldn’t you? You’ve… you’ve made something brilliant, something no one believed would succeed, from nothing but your own will and…” The words escaped her for a moment, catching in her throat, unwilling to be spoken. But this was something that needed to be said, had needed to be said for far longer than Hecate had ever realized, so she pressed on. “And that same need you have always had, to make right that which has wronged others.”

It was that need, Hecate had believed for so long, that had drawn Pippa to her. The need to fix the broken, to show care and compassion and love where once there was none. It was a defining characteristic of Pippa’s, had been for as long as Hecate had known her. But it had taken her shamefully long to accept, to even consider, that there could have been any other explanation.

“That was why I started my own school,” said Pippa, still abashed, still so uncharacteristically self-conscious. “I never felt that… that other schools provided quite what I thought they should.” She spoke hesitantly, eyeing Hecate carefully, most likely looking for any sign of offense on behalf of her own school.

Hecate made certain that she found none.

“I loved teaching,” Pippa admitted. “I truly did. I loved being in a classroom, working with students one on one, watching their skills grow from day to day, year to year. And I was so sad to give that up. But I reached a point where I needed to be somewhere different. Somewhere that could offer the kind of experience that I wish you and I could have had. And that school didn’t exist. So I built it.”

She said it like it was the simplest thing in the world. Like she hadn’t endured years of censure and ridicule from the witching community for daring to go against the traditions they held so dear. Like her first year of students hadn’t numbered so few, that she had been forced to teach half the classes on her own, unable to even justify the expense of a full staff. Like she hadn’t taken a school with no reputation, a student body comprised primarily of the Mildred Hubbles and Enid Nightshades of the world, and a blessing from the witching council so grudging that it may as well not have been given at all, and turned it into one of the most respected witching institutions in Britain.

Like she hadn’t worked miracles.

But Hecate still wasn’t quite there, wasn’t quite able, yet, to let Pippa know exactly how much she had followed the progression of her school over the years. Each painfully laid piece of groundwork, each piece of Pippa’s own magic woven into the walls; every time one of her students had won an award, every time Pippa had been named, once again, a beacon of change and hope for the magical community. Every time, Hecate had been there, Reading, watching, taking in every single piece of Pippa that she was missing, had been missing for so long.

So instead of saying any of that, Hecate simply smiled.

“So you did.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come join me on Tumblr at thebestdressedrebelinhistory


End file.
